


Crash

by ladysisyphus



Series: Wolves [25]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:33:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysisyphus/pseuds/ladysisyphus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the things learning to sign had forced Numbers to reconsider was his use of profanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crash

One of the things learning to sign had forced Numbers to reconsider was his use of profanity. He didn't consider himself a particularly vulgar man -- save for a short adolescent period after leaving home, where he'd overdosed on 'fuck' and 'motherfucker' in the hope that, repeated enough times, they'd make him sound anything but his age -- but he'd often been the type to declare someone a fucking idiot or deem a situation a fucking mess. He wanted to do both at the moment, in fact, but he couldn't quite get to that specific phrasing with his hands and he knew better at the moment than to speak unless he got spoken to.

Jergen wasn't speaking to him, though. He was speaking to the fucking idiot who'd gotten them into this whole fucking mess, rambling on, his mad wide vowels distorting every word. Numbers had once spent half an hour trying to explain to Wrench just what was going on with that man's mouth. Jergen's back was to them now, though, where not even the best lip-reading skills could have helped. Wrench gave Numbers a little nudge: What's he saying?

Yelling, Numbers signed back. In general.

Wrench shrugged and went back to leaning against the wall. In a way, menacing a guy they'd worked with before made their part of the job easier. The man in the chair already knew exactly what they could and would do to him if necessary, and that knowledge didn't change whether they were fixing him with fierce glares or making themselves sandwiches.

Specialization in this line of work was a concept Numbers had never needed explained. It wasn't that the boss didn't trust him to deliver a message that, at the end of the day, the recipient was still alive to hear. It was just that once the message reached a certain length, there were tools more appropriate to that purpose.

I hate Wisconsin, Wrench signed with a quiet, long-suffering expression -- so long-suffering, in fact, that Numbers supposed another accurate translation might have been, I _fucking_ hate Wisconsin.

Regardless of how much he might agree, Numbers shrugged: Not all bad. Good cheese.

He was lucky then that Jergen launched into a particularly distracting tide of invective right then, and no one else in the room saw Wrench's menacing glower disappear into a petulant eyeroll. It wasn't so much that it was unprofessional; there were just some things Numbers liked to keep for himself.

 

~*~

 

"So here I am, right? My day's work done, all shacked up with a nice little Cheesehead trim, got my eyes on that prize, and she's barking for it, she's practically begging me to root her, and I'm about to tell her, sweetheart, why don't you maybe call over that friend of yours you said lives across the hall and see if she's got any plans for the evening, and she's got her hand down my pants, right? And she says, why's it _buzzing_?"

Wrench shot Numbers the closest thing he dared to a look of panic in public. Is he telling that story _again_?

He tells it every time, Numbers signed, and though that wasn't strictly true, it was close. Numbers judged that Jergen had earned himself _maybe_ two more recountings of their mishap and his heroism before the tale wore out its welcome. There were still a couple guys at the lunch who hadn't heard it before, though, so Numbers sat back and picked at his beef lo mein and tried not to look _too_ obviously like he was thinking of jumping across the table and cutting the telling short, possibly literally with cutting.

"Flip it open -- and tell you what, I'm right ready to tell whatever stinker's there to nick off," Jergen said, gesturing with his chopsticks as he talked. Both his accent and his slang got more ridiculous in a public forum like this, and there were plenty of times Numbers had been left wondering how much of it all was bullshit. Then again, it was a question you could have asked any of them; Jergen was just louder than most about it. "Except it's from _this_ cunt's number--" Jergen stabbed his chopsticks in Numbers' direction, then mimed flipping open a cell phone. "And it's a fuckin' _text message_."

Cryptic codes left on beepers had been common enough cues in the past, but men in their line of work tended to get shirty about anything that might leave a record. "So I don't even _read_ it," Jergen continued, pleased as ever to have the attention of the room. "I excuse myself for a second to the young slager and pop into the far room to call -- and the fucker picks up, first ring, and _hangs up_!" A low rumble of laughter rose from the table, especially from those who'd heard it before and knew where this was all going.

"So of course _I_ figure, eh, no big deal, call dropped, it happens. Okay, I go to ring him again -- and same fucking thing! Picks up -- and I _know_ he picks up, because I can hear breathing on the other end -- and then hangs up again! _This_ time, though, a little light pops on, and I click back to my texts. Got an address, right? Only I can't figure out what the fuck 938 East Cedar Ambulance is supposed to mean."

The other guys around the table chuckled, whether they knew the story or not, and Numbers tried not to show _too_ many teeth through his polite grin. Numbers looked to Wrench, and Wrench looked back, and his eyes flickered only for an instant to Numbers' side.

A waiter came by and set down another one of those godawful sugar booze drinks, and Jergen took advantage of knowing he had the room locked down to take a drink of it before continuing. "Turns out," he said, gesturing in Numbers' direction with the pinapple slice that had come stuck on the rim, " _this_ yobbo's got a knife a foot long skewering him like a kebab, bleeding out all over the place, so _this_ one--" The pineapple jabbed menacingly in Wrench's direction, and the _only_ reason -- literally, the only one -- Numbers hadn't broken at least a couple bones in Jergen's body for telling that was that Jergen could have spun it in a way that made Wrench sound like a jackass or an idiot, and he didn't. "Can't exactly call 9-1-1, can he? So he grabs _Numbers'_ phone and starts punching at the buttons, and instead of getting my dick wet, I get to interrupt my evening for a part-time job as a fucking switch operator. Oh, yes, thank you for picking up, I can tell you where to go, can't tell you why or even how I know, but sooner's best and later's no good at all, yeah?"

A lot of that evening was and would always be blurry, and for the best, but there were single moments Numbers could pull out of the fog. The two shots that took down the men at the sides. How Wrench hadn't even bothered using a weapon on the one who'd been holding the knife. The feeling of being soaked in blood and not being able to tell whose it was, or what it meant that it was going cold. Wrench's big, strong hands jabbing at the keypad of Numbers' phone, shaking, smearing its silver case red.

Jergen tossed the marascino cherry into his mouth, crushing it between his front teeth before plucking out the stem and swallowing the rest. "But we got him," Jergen concluded, looking over at Numbers with a smile that might have conveyed actual warmth, had it been seen on the face of someone with an actual human heart. "He's fucking still around."

"Can't get rid of me so easy," Numbers said, drinking down his beer. Wrench didn't need that translated; he knew it already.

 

~*~

 

What are you thinking? asked Wrench.

Numbers shook his head, then waved his hands around as though shooing away descending bats. Can't plan ahead. Have to decide when we go. No thinking about it before.

Wrench snorted, but he couldn't keep back a grin: Sorry, I don't want to mess up your R-I-T-U-A-L.

"Damn right you don't," Numbers said, poking Wrench in the center of his chest and grinning right back when Wrench's hands shot out and grabbed the offending digit. It was more affection than they usually showed for one another in public, but eleven on this particular Tuesday night wasn't exactly a bustling time for this wing of the hospital. His side was sore, but now it was sore _and_ free of stitches, which had been more than he'd been able to say for it for the previous few weeks. Numbers yanked his hand back: Jews care about R-I-T-U-A-L-S. Don't make me change who I am.

That got an even larger snort from Wrench, this one so long-suffering it was audible. Needs to be big. Maybe a P-I-R-A-T-E ship, maybe an eagle, maybe--

Whatever other terrible (and unfairly influential) tattoo suggestions might have followed were lost as Numbers turned his back on Wrench, flipping him the bird over his shoulder. He heard the breathy little sound of Wrench's muffled laughter, the most Numbers ever got out of him when they're weren't alone and behind locked doors -- and then a throat-clearing noise that made Numbers turn right around again. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

Jergen shrugged, tucking a billfold into the inner pocket of his sportcoat. The doctor emerged a few moments later from the same door; he was an older man, but he managed to look even frailer than he had twenty minutes previous. "I'll have a nurse bring along your discharge papers momentarily, John," the doctor said, addressing Numbers by the ID he'd had in his pocket when he'd been brought in. John Kurtz was a divorced ex-cop, originally from Vermont, who now worked as a consultant for a corporate security staffing office. Numbers would be almost sad to see him burn.

When the doctor was gone, Jergen stepped forward, turning so he faced both of them. "Shame when fine, upstanding citizens such as yourselves get caught in the middle of criminal activity," he said, spinning an unlit cigarette in his fingertips. "Especially former law enforcement. And who could blame you, with your police training, wanting to fight for truth, justice, and that other Superman business? Pity it took such a turn and that we'll probably never catch the hooligans who took down the men who stabbed you. But surely no one could say it was your fault."

Numbers turned to Wrench: Paid the doctor, no police R-E-P-O-R-T.

Wrench nodded and gave Jergen a little chin-to-palm sweep of his hand.

Numbers was _not_ going to translate that; the last thing Jergen's swelled head needed was to be inflated by gratitude. "We're done here, then?"

"Yeah, you little stuck pig, you're good as gold and better." Shit-eating grin drawing his mouth wide, Jergen gave Numbers a convivial pat on his shoulder before turning to Wrench. "Though about getting you a mobile of your own, eh? So you don't have to keep nicking this twat's whenever something goes tits-up?"

They'd had the conversation once where Numbers had explained that being able to hear Jergen didn't necessarily make him any easier to understand. He's asking, Numbers translated, if you need your own phone.

Wrench managed to keep from sneering outright, and only Numbers could see the effort that restraint took. I hate, he signed -- and that sign came with the kind of ferocity that would have rendered as profanity in speech -- T-9.

I know, I know, Numbers agreed, but that T-W-A-T has a point.

One of Wrench's eyebrows popped up. Did he call _you_ a T-W-A-T first?

"It's not usually a problem," Numbers said to Jergen, bypassing whole chunks of the conversation in both directions.

Holding up his hands to concede the point, Jergen grinned. "As you boys like. Though maybe make an effort to keep yourself from turning into a pincushion and he won't have to improvise." The cigarette trapped between his fingers flicked back and forth as he spoke; sometimes he made Numbers think of an insect, always twitching, moving, buzzing. "Keep your line clear anyway. Now that you're not the walking wounded anymore, got some trouble out toward Pierre that might need some checking in on. Sound like a party?"

"Just let us know," said Numbers, confident in his ability to speak for both of them there.

Whatever else might have been said then was preempted by the arrival of a nurse, a young woman in purple scrubs who had a clipboard's worth of pages for John Kurtz. Jergen fired off a two-fingered cigarette salute in their collective direction and gave the nurse a toothy grin on his way out, something between a threat and a leer. There was no telling with that guy.

Numbers was only about three pages in, signing and initialing as he went, when Wrench tapped him on the shoulder: I know.

What do you know? asked Numbers.

With a solemn look, Wrench pointed to Numbers' healing side, then signed: You need a K-A-N-G-A-R-O-O.

It still hurt to laugh, more than a little, but it felt good all the same.

 

~*~

 

Some of Numbers' instincts were strong, like the instinct that said if a loud sound was keeping him from sleep, that sound should be stopped, and if the way to stop that sound was by picking up a telephone, he would. He stumbled to his feet and padded his way in near-darkness to the source of the sound, grabbing at it so hard he almost knocked the whole mess to the floor. "Hello?" he mumbled into the receiver.

"Just another tits-up Tuesday!" chirped Jergen, sounding altogether unworried about the prospect -- and irritatingly chipper, considering that even Numbers' sleep-bleared eyes could read a bright **4:25** on the microwave clock. It was only still Tuesday by the most generous of definitions. "Need you two at the North Shore station in an hour. Less, if you can."

"We'll be there," Numbers promised, and he hung up the phone -- or at least he tried, as it took him a few good attempts to fit the receiver in the cradle. Hopefully they weren't being called upon to do anything too mentally arduous. He'd need to change; he'd fallen asleep in most of what he'd been wearing yesterday. He'd also need coffee. He reached to hit the switch on the coffeemaker he kept set up by his kitchen phone, then frowned as his hand slapped bare formica. Who the fuck had taken his coffeemaker?

No, no one had taken it, because it wasn't there; it was on the other side of the counter, and it wasn't even _his_ counter or his coffeemaker anyway. He looked across the living room to where Wrench had pulled himself into a seated position on the couch, _his_ couch, right where they'd been watching the game some hours previous. The television shone its late-night programming from the other side of the room, the captions below lagging silently behind the mouth of the infomercial host. What's wrong? asked Wrench, tugging his t-shirt down from where it had bunched up around his middle in his sleep.

The phone rang, Numbers signed, then pointed to where they'd run a regular phone through the TTY hookup a few years back, around the time it had become clear that they were spending half the time in Wrench's apartment and half the time in Numbers', but no matter where they were, Numbers needed to be able to call out for pizza. It had been a stupid thing even at the time, a mundane necessity -- it was a _phone_ , for fuck's sake, a twelve-dollar purchase from the Kmart. But they'd made it together, and it mattered.

Who called?

Jergen, Numbers signed, which was a classy combination of the letter J and a jerk-off motion. It was a sign of his own invention.

Wrench stood and jerked his head to either side, letting his vertebrae crack. Why did he call here?

Maybe-- Numbers screwed his mouth to one side in thought. Tried to call my home phone first, no answer.

Then calls _here_?

They both stood there for a moment in Wrench's quiet apartment, lit only by the flickering colors from the TV. There could have been a million reasons for Numbers to be at Wrench's place at four in the morning, but there were zero reasons to make that call in the first place unless the person making it thought someone hearing would be on the other end to pick it up.

Wrench signed something, catching Numbers' attention, and when Numbers frowned, Wrench repeated: What did he want?

You, me, north S-H-O-R-E, one hour.

Though Wrench looked a little startled by that, he nodded and tugged his shirt off over his head. It was a ratty old thing, so worn and washed the printed lettering was all but gone; he wore it when he ran, which had been what he'd just finished doing before kickoff, and when Numbers had put his head on Wrench's shoulder sometime in the third quarter, he'd smelled like warmth and sweat and sleep. Numbers couldn't have sworn what the final score had been.

Start coffee, Wrench signed. He tossed his shirt over his shoulder and headed for the bedroom, then stopped at the doorway to the hall, drumming his fingers against the wall to get Numbers' attention: If he asks, you can say I let you C-R-A-S-H here. F-O-O-T-B-A-L-L, too much beer.

He won't ask, Numbers answered. He wasn't even sure why he was so confident, but he was as sure of it as he was of anything. Division of labor, after all -- they all had their jobs, and part of Jergen's was to make sure Wrench and Numbers had what they needed to do theirs. Whatever was known or unknown beyond that simply didn't matter.

This isn't weird? asked Wrench with a frown.

Numbers laughed at that as he flipped the switch, hearing the heating coils hiss as they brought the percolator to life. Weird, he agreed, but for us? Weird is normal. Can we get there in an hour?

Enough coffee, and I can do _anything_ , Wrench signed with a wink before padding off down the hall. Assured by the red light on the machine that caffeine would be waiting for him when he was done, Numbers went to root through the bureau drawers that had become his, hoping to find at least a clean shirt. And maybe if everything went well, at breakfast he'd have to hear that smug son of a bitch tell the whole sordid Wisconsin telephone tale again -- but whatever, once more was so little in the grand scheme of things. There was so much more to the story, after all, and if that was where Jergen cut off his version, well, Numbers could live with that.

And then maybe on the way home they'd find a shitty little tattoo parlor, one sketchy enough to be open on a Wednesday morning. The side of his belly would be marked forever by the knife, but ink jabbed beneath that now-healed skin would do the same. The only difference in the end would be the way he chose to tell his scars.


End file.
